Northwest Passage Expedition – daily update 6 September 2024

Missed yesterday’s post? Click here.

Very long night. Started out with a bit of a choppy sea, then flattened completely, then a few small, gentle rollers and the odd breaker again, then some weird ultra-slow frequency, pretty high but very spread out (“flattened”) rollers came in for the last four hours before dawn.

SOME WAVES

Some of the waves looked like they were going to wash over deck, if you looked at them from a low seated position inside the front cabin with eye levels not far above the deck level, but they never did. A few of them hit an inch or so below the gunwhale/gunnel line (deck level).

UPDATE FROM THE SKIPPER

At 8am, Leven updated the rest of the team about the plan for the day. Instead of deteriorating, the leak situation had actually further improved. Less water came in and less bailing needed to be done. Good for Mike and me.

AUTOPILOT

Leven and Karts of course outdid us utterly and completely: they had decided to switch to autopilot earlier today, that meant that their task of steering had become obsolete. The reason why one would normally not use autopilot that far up North, is because GPS and compass do not work properly here, and as a result neither does the autopilot. It seems, though, that with a few workarounds and while motoring as opposed to rowing, the autopilot is somewhat okay’ish to use.

STRONG WINDS FROM 6PM

The forecasts predicted very strong winds from 6pm, so the plan was to reach a safe anchoring place by 5pm the latest, ideally much sooner.

MARGARET HARDING SPOTS MOTOR FAILURE VIA TRACKER

At 1pm I saw a comment from Mike’s mom Margaret on Facebook, asking why our speed had gone down from 3.3 to 2.4 knots. I asked Karts, who told me that the electric motor had stopped working more than an hour ago. We were currently drifting. There is an acute irony in the fact that for more than a month we had almost constantly been fighting headwinds and adverse crosswinds. Then on the first day of mainly motoring the tailwind is so strong, it propels us to 2.4 knots, a speed we struggled to achieve many a time while rowing as hard as we could.

HELPLINE

Having had trouble to spot any cause (no error messages, blinking alarms or other obvious things amiss, Leven was able to get hold of someone at the helpline of the manufacturer. However, after they had gone through the checklist together, the situation was still clear as mud. Our skipper discussed the issue with various other people, but no one could help.

TIME TO ROW HARD

At 2pm, we started rowing as hard as we could. When we started, the sky had looked a mix of pleasant white cloudy and blue. Over the course of the next few hours it would change dramatically again and again.

(Rowing photos above are from previous days)

WEIRD WEATHER

At one stage the sky was mostly blue and free of clouds, with a lovely warm sun shining down on us. Half an hour later the whole sky behind us was thick and dark with rain. Then it was time for rainbows and yet more sun, before a weird fog started to close in on us. While the rolling, approaching, grey wall was still at a distance, we could see that it barely reached 100m (120 yards) in height. Within minutes it had caught up with us and reduced sight to perhaps 125 metres (150 yards), while above us we could still spot the blue sky through the fog.

REACHING THE ANCHORING LOCATION JUST IN TIME

We felt lucky when we reached a safe anchoring location at 5:30pm. At first we beached, but then we decided that it would be more convenient to anchor, because tomorrow at 7am the wind direction was expected to change and that meant that we’d row around a nearby spit of land and then anchor on the opposite side of it.

For tomorrow’s post click here.

 

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE EXPEDITION

 

22 July – LHR to YCB

2 August 2024 (Cambridge Bay to Starvation Bay)

4 August 2024 (Starvation Bay to Wellington Bay)

12 August 2024 (From Wellington Bay 6h further Westward)

15 August 2024 (53mi/96km from Botany Island to Richardson Islands)

18 August 2024 (from Richardson Islands past Marker Islands)

22 August 2024 (23mi/37km Westward from Miles and Nauyan Islands past Lady Franklin Point – extremely tough conditions – ‘MISSION IMPOSSIBLE’)

23 August 2024 (Dreadful 10 miles – 12mi/19km – that felt like 100 miles to Douglas Island; welcome committee of two dozen seals)

25 August 2024 (An easy 19mi/31km from Douglas Island to Lambert Island; MS Fridtjoff Nansen passing)

27 August 2024 (An easy 7mi/9km along Lambert Island; yacht Night Owl passing by us)

28 August 2024 (STARTING OUR 64MI/104KM PUSH EARLY; passing Hanseatic Spirit, MS Roald Amundsen, yacht Honshu)

29 August 2024 (Arriving at Cape Hope after 64mi/104km – new team best)

30 August 2024 (EMERGENCY BEACHING at a bay next to Cape Hope)

31 August 2024 (CABIN FLOODED; LEAK FOUND)

Mike’s Poem about our Northwest Passage Expedition

3 September 2024 (REPAIRING HERMIONE)

DETAILS OF LEVEN’S MASTERPIECE: THE PRELIMINARY REPAIR and preparation of the re-launch of Hermione

4 September 2024 (A LOT OF DIGGING and another unsuccessful attempt to refloat the boat)

5 September 2024 (REFLOATING HERMIONE, MOTORING TOWARDS PAULATUK; MILITARY PLANE PASSING)

6 September 2024  (BACK TO ROWING AFTER EMERGENCY MOTOR BREAKS)

8 September 2024 (my 50th birthday; ALMOST CRASHING THE BOAT into rocks; Skynet; a pod of whales)

12 September 2024 (starting our last big push before Paulatuk; RUNNING AGROUND 3X; BIOLUMINESCENCE; Northern lights)

13 September 2024 (ALL HELL BREAKING LOOSE – ALMOST CRASHING INTO CLIFFS)

NORTHERN LIGHTS, 15 September, near Paulatuk

15 September 2024 (REACHING PAULATUK)

16 September 2024 (eating proper food; shower; the good life)

19 September 2024 (flying back home; 5 flights; Breakfast Club at Inuvik Airport)

Stefan will be rowing the Northwest Passage this summer – A little Q&A

Northwest Passage Expedition – Kit List

Trevor’s Travel Trivia IX – The Northwest Passage

My home town’s newspaper, Burghauser Anzeiger, has published an article about the Expedition

Post-expedition Q&As – Coming back from the Arctic after two months

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